Earlier this month reports surfaced that some chip design firms had orders in the works from unspecified Asian based manufacturers, prompting speculation that Sony or LG may be working on their own in-house chips to use in smartphones. Yesterday, industry sources reported that LG is moving to “pilot production” of a new ARM-based, 64-bit octa-core processor called the Nuclun 2 in conjunction with Intel and TSMC.
LG has produced its own chip, the Nuclun 1, using a 28-nm FinFET technology and even deployed it in the LG G3 Screen smartphone. However, performance was not considered acceptable and prompted LG to continue looking at ways to get into the chip production game.
The Nuclun 2 will be manufactured on a test basis using Intel’s 14-nm FinFET capabilities and TSMC’s 16-nm FinFET line. By incorporating advanced design and capabilities, the Nuclun 2 should be competitive from a performance standpoint with the latest offerings from Qualcomm and Samsung. The big challenge will be in areas like energy consumption and heat management. If LG’s efforts are successful, they could move to use of their own chip in their flagship devices.
Reports indicate LG has a strong desire to move away from use of chips produced by its competition, Samsung, and to not be so dependent on a company like Qualcomm to produce a key component in its smartphone devices. The fact that Qualcomm is moving production to Samsung facilities in the future probably did not sit well with LG executives either.
source: Business Korea
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